What is RPA?

Automation has become a priority for many businesses who want to maintain a competitive edge. According to a Deloitte study in 2020, 73% of organisations worldwide use automation technologies. Efficiency is a driving factor In this, and one way of improving efficiency is to address the manual repetitive tasks that are performed by humans. This is where RPA comes in.

RPA, or Robotic Process Automation, is the use of software to build automated applications that emulate a humans actions in a business process. These actions are replaced by a robot or “bot”. This enables business users to spend more time dealing with customers or high value work.

This is different to Business Process Automation, or BPA. BPA is where an entire business process is automated from start to finish, e.g. Customer onboarding. With BPA, tasks are streamlined with many repeatable manual tasks replaced in the same way as RPA, but with the whole process covered there will be user interaction and multiple touch points.

RPA solutions tend to be no-code, as they are designed to replicate the simplest, repeatable business tasks. This is a quick win for many companies as it will have some immediate efficiencies.

Should you look at BPA as an alternative?

The simple answer is yes.

BPA platforms tend to be Low-Code and can do everything that an RPA platform and more. Simple tasks can be automated by business users using drag-and-drop technology, whilst technical citizen developers will be able to build complex processes that span multiple business units.

The key here is that collaboration determines the successful outcome. Utilising Low-code means that the subject matter experts, i.e. the users, are able to have their input and create smaller parts of the overall automation. This results in employee satisfaction, as the final solution will not only improve their workload, but employees will feel valued. No longer will they be provided with an app, built without their input, that doesn’t fully cater for their needs.

How does BPA differ from RPA?

The key difference between the two types of automation is that BPA focuses on optimising business processes across the entire organisation rather than individual tasks. RPA is currently more popular, due to its simplicity, but if your business has larger automation needs that require an analytical approach to your data then BPA will be more suitable.

BPA with PhixFlow Low-Code

Working with PhixFlow, will enable you to cover the best of both worlds. Non-technical citizen developers and business subject matter experts will be able to create the applications they need to automate processes with the confines of a governed environment using No-Code. The creation of complex applications, which span multiple departments and systems, are developed by technical citizen developers alongside the business users.

Our customer success teams are also on hand to ensure that your experience with PhixFlow is seamless. By combining your users ideas and our experience, your organisation will soon be taking advantage of the benefits of Low-Code application development.